Mauna Kea

Letter: Many Support CMP

My Letter to the Editor ran in yesterday’s Hawaii Tribune-Herald. Here is the letter:

Many Support CMP

Friday’s Hawaii Tribune-Herald headline read: “Mauna Kea Plan Sparks Suit.” Certainly, people are within their rights to sue. I would like to point out, though, that it is only a small group of people that opposes the Comprehensive Management Plan (CMP) for Mauna Kea and plans to sue. Many, many more Hawaiians on this island support the CMP. At the meeting where the Office of Hawaiian Affairs supported the CMP, OHA Trustee Robert Lindsey testified that there is overwhelming support on the Big Island for the plan. This is apparent to me, as well.

We must aloha the plaintiffs, though, for having been in the forefront of the Mauna Kea issues for so many years. They brought the issues to the rest of our attention. They won a lawsuit, in which it was found that a CMP was needed. (Now, however, they are arguing against it.) We must also mahalo the countless volunteers who worked on the CMP, addressing the concerns brought forward by the plaintiffs and doing everything they could to make this plan pono. It is very important that we malama Mauna Kea. I have not met one person who doesn’t want the best for Mauna Kea.

Three years ago, when I first heard that the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT) was interested in coming to Mauna Kea, I volunteered to be on the Hawai‘i Island Economic Development Board’s TMT committee. If it was going to happen, I wanted to have a hand in making sure it was done right. It was obvious to me that this is about our keiki and future generations now; it’s not about any of us. If we can move forward with this, they will be able to look to the skies instead of into the mud. And they will know that they can achieve anything.

Did you know that the TMT has pledged $50 million toward our Big Island children’s education? It will be administered by carefully selected community members and is earmarked primarily for K-12 education. If we do the CMP in a pono way, then and only then can we look ahead to a place where science and the Hawaiian culture can coexist. When it can, then we can site the best telescope in the world on the most sacred mountain in the whole world.

When I was a small kid, my dad, who was a very wise Hawaiian man, told me: “Get thousand reasons why ‘No can.’ I only looking for one reason why ‘Can!’”

Not, no can. CAN!

Richard Ha
President, Hamakua Springs Country Farms

Hawaiian Role Models, Television

Hawaiian Language Story Ends Happily Ever After

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Whew! There’s a good finish to the story we told you about the other day — the one in which Leslie Wilcox, President and CEO of PBS Hawai‘i, took a stand and told the producers of a national program that PBS Hawai‘i wouldn’t air their documentary, filmed on the Big Island, unless they redid the narration to correct the pronunciation of Hawaiian words.

It’s a program that Richard appears in, yet he agreed with her position 100 percent.

The problem with the Hawaiian language as originally narrated wasn’t a “malihini’s earnest stumbling,” Leslie wrote, but a “cavalier approximation.” And yet the show’s producers dismissed her concern.

Richard told me, “I posted on Leslie’s blog that I didn’t mean to put pressure but that I know that even President Obama, who grew up here, would cringe.

“It makes me chuckle to think what that must have been like,” he says, “when the light finally went on. ‘Phone for you. I don’t know what he wants; he says he’s the President of the United States.'”

As support for PBS Hawai‘i’s position swelled, the program’s producer capitulated a bit and offered to let PBS Hawai‘i re-narrate the program that would air here — but not to the rest of the country.

Leslie didn’t let it go.

And now, a happy ending. The program’s producers have agreed to redo the documentary’s narration.

Keola Donaghy of the University of Hawai‘i at Hilo volunteered to record an audio sample of the correct pronunciations, and then coached the mainland narrator by phone until he had it down. He also listened as the narrator committed the words to tape.

Leslie Wilcox writes:

“Good job by the voice man, a respected on-air talent who was open to learning and who learned quickly. Keola says the man ended up pronouncing the words better than some Hawaii natives.”

Read her full blog post about this here.

Leslie Wilcox and PBS Hawai‘i, we salute you!

Hawaiian Role Models, Television

PBS Hawaii Takes A Stand, And We Agree

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We are watching with interest something that is unfolding over at PBS Hawai‘i.

Leslie Wilcox, President and CEO of PBS, first wrote about it in her blog post titled Plowing Thru Hawaiian Words Without a Clue:

Our management team at PBS Hawaii made an easy call today. We decided to tell the producers of a national series that we won’t air a particular episode unless they re-do their narration, to pronounce key Hawaiian words correctly.

… For example, Hualalai is pronounced (twice) as Hula Lolly.

This is a show that came to Hawaii and didn’t do its cultural homework. As a result, the show suffers a loss of credibility.

…We’re not perfect, either. But we believe it’s important to make one’s best effort—to learn phonetic basics rather than plow through Hawaiian words without a clue.

Local stations are the heart of the PBS system, and so is education. Let’s hope this show decides to go back to the audio booth, to backtrack and re-track, and give all of the TV markets in which it airs the authenticity and quality that viewers deserve.

She writes that she thinks it’s otherwise a fine program, and hopes to be able to air it.

Even before I realized that this was a program Richard was interviewed by and appears on – we wrote about it here at the blog – I was really interested in this situation. I agree that it’s a sign of respect for a culture when you try to pronounce its language correctly; and a sign of disrespect when you don’t make any effort at all.

The following day, Leslie Wilcox acknowledged all the hundreds of hits and positive comments her initial blog post received in a post she titled Sticking Up for the Hawaiian Language:

Wow, do we feel the love! The love and respect for the HAWAIIAN LANGUAGE that so many of you have…

Thank you for voicing your support of PBS Hawaii’s decision to insist on authenticity – in the narration of an episode in national TV series. In the show, shot on location on Hawaii Island and prepared for U.S. broadcast next month, the narrator badly mispronounces well-known Hawaiian words, like Mauna Kea (“Mona Kay”).  Keaukaha, the name of the pono-embracing public school on Hawaiian Homestead land in Hilo, is unrecognizable.

My blog entry on this subject last evening received hundreds and hundreds of hits overnight, and kept racking up hits all day. It was Facebooked and Twittered.

Then I read on and realized I knew what program she was talking about.

I’m struck by the reverence for the Hawaiian language and culture—especially as I notice a post on my blog by Hamakua Springs Country Farm owner Richard Ha. He has every reason to push for this TV program to run, no matter what, because he’s a featured interviewee on the show and the exposure would undoubtedly help his business in tough times.

Instead Richard writes after watching an advance copy of the show: “I cringed when I saw it.” He thanks us for “doing the right thing.” Inspiring, huh?

And then I was stunned when I read her next post, titled What if the Narrator Got THEIR Home’s Name Wrong?, which talked about the initial response she got from the program’s production company.

…A representative of the TV production company is in effect dismissing PBS Hawaii’s concerns as a matter of nuance. Here’s a direct quote from an email: “Subtleties and variations in pronunciation are bound to happen with such an old and regionalized language. We understand there are varying opinions and outlooks such as yours…”
  
This is nonsense.

…Keola Donaghy of UH Hilo says he will provide audio of the correct pronunciation of the place-names or make an expert available to talk with the show’s narrator at no cost.
  
Too late, too expensive, the production company is saying.
  
Question: If the narrator identified the producers’ own home base, Annandale, Virginia, by a name unrecognizable to the region’s residents, would it feel compelled to correct the mistake?

Such an interesting position for a production company, which airs its programs on PBS stations across the nation, to take. Defensive. Dismissive. I’m surprised, frankly, at the cavalier attitude.

If I make an error in my work, I am chagrined and count the minutes until I can get back to the computer to correct it. What is the difference here?

Do the producers of this program really view the local regions they go into, and in this case that region’s culture and language, with such contempt?

Richard told me, “Imagine if President Obama, who grew up in Hawai‘i, saw that program. I’m sure he’d cringe.”

In a comment to her most recent post, Leslie Wilcox writes that the wind may be a changin’.

There’s an indication that the production company’s attitude may be changing. I’ll put in a call Monday morning and find out more.

We’ll keep you posted.

Electric Cars

Electric Car

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A real, live, homemade electric car.

License plate

Barry Mizuno’s customized license plate

Barry Mizuno ordered this electric car from a person who does electric car conversions on the mainland. He removed the motor from this BMW and installed the batteries and electric motor.

Barry tells me that he just parks his car in his garage, and plugs it in from where the gas cap used to be.

Electric car
Mike Kaleikini, Manager of Puna Geothermal, asks, “What happened to the motor?”

Batteries
 More batteries in the trunk!

What strikes me is realizing that my friends who took auto mechanics in the 1960s could do these conversions. When the large auto makers went to electronics and computer run cars, they left a lot of the regular folks behind. This will allow folks to wrench their own cars again. I have the feeling some will start to convert cars in Hilo soon.

I’m jealous. I think I’ll have my sampan bus converted to electricity.

Peter Merriman and Sampan bus 002
Here are Peter Merriman and his guys standing next to our sampan bus

Last summer, when oil prices were at $147, my nephew told me: “Uncle, I’m thinking of selling my truck and getting a scooter to go to work.” Right then, I knew that the world had changed.

Guys like him now have the option of converting a car to electric, rather than buying a scooter.

I’ll bet that an electric Volkswagen would give him just as grand a self-image as a big-tired 4 x 4 with a pitbull in the back.

Company News, Food Security

Visiting the Corn

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We are preparing for a future of decreasing world oil supplies by transitioning from being the only producer on 600 acres of land at Pepe‘ekeo to being a model of multiple family farms.
Sweet potato, to be followed by sweet cornSweet potato, to be followed in rotation by sweet corn

And it’s growing. We now have one of the best sweet potato and ginger growers on the Big Island planting on our land. Following Tai Wan Gu in rotation is Daniel Loeffler, the Big Island’s premier corn grower. We are looking for one more crop to fit into the rotation; maybe some kind of grain to make pelletized animal or fish food.

James B, Daniel & Jennifer LoefflerJames Brewbaker (left), Daniel and Jennifer Loeffler

Last Wednesday, Daniel told me that there was going to be a field day at the Waimanalo Research Station on Saturday. He told me that the famous corn breeder, Dr. James Brewbaker, would give a talk and that there would be a tasting of new corn varieties. So June and I decided to take a break and go to the field day.

Richard & Dr. BRichard (left) and Dr. B. (Photo by another well-known Brewbaker, Richard’s friend Paul Brewbaker, long-time lead economist for the Bank of Hawai‘i and Dr. B.’s son.)

Dr. B. talked about how he bred the Hawaiian sweet corn for many traits. In addition to sweetness, his primary objective was to avoid the use of pesticides. This is a big deal, because it is possible to grow the corn Dr. B. breeds and not have to spray for fungus diseases or for insects. Grass control still needs to be done using a combination of spraying and tilling.

Just imagine not having to spray to control diseases. Dr. B bred the corn so it has tight wrapper leaves. The objective was to make it difficult for the corn ear worm to work its way down the corn ear, because the wrapper leaves prevents this. Again, one would not have to spray for the corn ear worm if one could tolerate the worm just living in the tip of the corn. Most people can live with this. One worm is not a big deal, but avoiding the spraying of pesticides is.

We were told that we could walk into the demonstration plots and harvest corn. Daniel got a few ears to sample. He peeled off the wrapper leaves and offered the raw corn to several of us. It was incredibly sweet. Actually, the best way to eat Hawaiian sweet corn is raw.

We moved over to where the corn tasting was going on and were asked to rate two different varieties. We all agreed that selection B was head and shoulders better than selection A. We did not find out what the name of selection B was. But that is the one to grow. No doubt.

The traffic on O‘ahu on a Saturday was surprisingly dense. It was nice to fly back to slow-moving Hilo.

Biofuel, Sustainability

Comment on Hawaii Bioenergy Master Plan

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The State’s bioenergy master plan was released for comment last week, and final comments are being accepted until October 2nd.

Why the rush?

Before it is released, the plan is already obsolete for the Big Island. Biofuels will not result in lower costs for ratepayers.

Here on the Big Island, though, we have an option that will – geothermal.

From the master plan:

“The primary objective of the bioenergy master plan shall [be to] develop a Hawaii renewable biofuels program to manage the State’s transition to energy self-sufficiency based in part on biofuels for power generation and transportation.”

Geothermal has a better chance of achieving the above objectives of self-sufficiency in power generation as well as transportation.  It does not utilize any fossil fuels in its production, does not produce any greenhouse gases to speak of and does not compete with food production. It is proven. It can even help HELCO manage the grid.

Furthermore, it is a resource benefiting native Hawaiians – through royalties and possibly rents.

Biofuels have a very poor Energy Return on Energy Invested (EROI), below 2 to 1. This is below the minimum EROI a sustainable society requires, which is considered to be 3 to 1.

By contrast, geothermal has an EROI of approximately 10 to 1, and that is not expected to change in the next few centuries.

We owe it to future generations to do the right thing.

Read the plan (see the link above) and submit comments by emailing them here no later than October 2, 2009.

Here is the comment I submitted:

Aloha:

I am Richard Ha. We farm 600 fee simple acres of various fruits and vegetables in Pepe‘ekeo. In addition, I am treasurer of the Hawaii Farm Bureau Federation.

I have several comments regarding this master plan.

If oil is $200 per barrel, one pound of that oil is worth 70 cents. Farmers estimate that it might take four pounds of stuff to make one pound of liquid. As a rough estimate, farmers know that the most they can get for the stuff they grow when the price of oil is real high is approximately 18 cents per pound. At today’s oil price, they would only get 6 cents per pound. Better to grow cucumber.

It does not matter what the stuff is.  The costs, to maintain, harvest, pre-process and transport the stuff, are related to oil prices. So as oil price rise, the cost of growing the stuff also rises. It is kind of like chasing the mechanical rabbit at the greyhound racetrack. The dogs never can catch the rabbit. So small farmers will not likely become a major supplier of biofuels.

Because of the commodity characteristics of biofuel, the producers are likely to be larger industrial type agriculture participants. There are only a few places that lend itself to that kind of farming. It is reasonable to assume that food and fuel will be competing for the same land. There should be an analysis done to evaluate this.

There should be an Energy Return on Investment (EROI) analysis of the various types of biofuels so it can be compared against other energy alternatives. It is estimated that the EROI for oil was 100 to 1 in the 1930s – i.e., it took one barrel of oil to get a hundred. This declined to 30 to 1 in the 1970s, and recently it has been hovering around 10-15 to 1. But as it becomes more and more difficult to get oil, that ratio is steadily declining.

It has been estimated that an EROI ratio of 3 to 1 is the minimum necessary to maintain a sustainable society. http://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/2/1/25/pdf.
Biofuels are estimated to be less than 2 to 1.

This study should not exist in a vacuum. We know that electric vehicles are around the corner.  What is the advantage of pursuing a product that has an EROI of 2 to 1, versus one like geothermal that has an EROI of approximately 10 to 1 that will not decline for the foreseeable future?

It is my opinion that pursuing biofuels is the wrong solution to our energy problem.

Richard Ha
President,
Hamakua Springs Country Farms

Government

Crisis re: Plant Quarantine Inspectors, and a Solution

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The Hawai‘i Department of Agriculture will keep 22 of the 50 Plant Quarantine Inspector positions it proposed eliminating during its August “Reduction in Force” announcement.

From the Department of Agriculture press release:

The rescission of the 22 notices will allow the department to further support core inspection services at all ports statewide; however, inspection capacity will still be significantly decreased from current levels.

It is unacceptable to simply let food crops into Hawai‘i without being inspected, using the excuse that we cannot afford the inspection.

“The department continues to look for alternative sources of funding,” said Sandra Lee Kunimoto, Chairperson of the Hawai`i Board of Agriculture.  “In addition, we are working on increasing coordination of inspection services to make the most efficient use of our work force and minimize the disruption to our important agricultural, food and shipping industries.”
We should charge importing companies the cost of inspection. It is definitely not fair to expect farmers to pay for the inspection of foreign-grown produce, by way of taxation.
Peak Oil, Renewable Energy Sources

Sustaining a Population

What is the Minimum EROI [Energy Return on Investment] that a Sustainable Society Must Have?

by Charles A. S. Hall, Stephen Balogh and David J. R. Murphy
Program in Environmental Science, State University of New York – College of Environmental Science and Forestry, Syracuse NY, 13210, USA

…Every plant and every animal must conform to this iron “law” of evolutionary energetics: if you are to survive you must produce or capture more energy than you use to obtain it, if you are to reproduce you must have a large surplus beyond metabolic needs, and if your species are to prosper over evolutionary time you must have a very large surplus for the average individual to compensate for the large losses that occur to the majority of the population. In other words every surviving individual and species needs to do things that gain more energy than they cost, and those species that are successful in an evolutionary sense are those that generate a great deal of surplus energy that allows them to become abundant and to spread. While we are unaware of any official pronouncement of this idea as a law, it seems to us to be so self-obvious that we might as well call it a law – the law of minimum EROI – unless anyone can think of any objections.… Read the rest of the article here

A mother cheetah must chase and catch a gazelle or rabbit and obtain enough energy from it not only to feed her kids, but also to be able to chase another one down and even survive some days without catching anything.

Hawaiians understood this concept very clearly. It’s why in the Hawaiian culture there is such a close affinity to the land, the ocean and all things in nature: That is where the surplus energy came from to sustain the population.

The move to populate Hawai‘i probably came from a need to find surplus energy (food) caused by overpopulation or similar in the navigating Polynesians’ home islands.

We all know there are clouds on the horizon now, and that our surplus energy supplies are again threatened.

In the 1930s, it took one barrel of oil to obtain 100 barrels. In the 70s, that ratio had decreased to 1 to 30. A few years ago, it was estimated to be 1 to a little more than 10.

When it finally dawns on all of us that our oil supplies will never increase, people will get frightened. But at that point, it will be too late.

Most of us Hawaiians look upon our geothermal resource as a gift. And even more so now, when it can be a matter of survival of the species.

We’ve done it before and we need to do it again. Pau talk, ‘nough planning. We go!

Peak Oil, Renewable Energy Sources

Envy Of The World

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Here is an easy-to-understand video that explains Peak Oil, and it’s well worth watching.

It isn’t a theory of when oil will run out. Rather, it’s a description of what happens to oil wells as they age, and it makes simple collective observations and assumptions about all the oil wells in the world. It is simple and easy to predict that oil will become more and more costly.

When that happens, we will need to get out of the line of fire. It’s not complicated.

We are incredibly lucky here on the Big Island, because we have a geothermal resource beneath us at many locations all around the island. The State owns this resource. They should go map it out and contract out the energy production to the highest bidder. Part of the rents and royalties would go to the Native Hawaiian people, on whose land it sits, and the actual energy would benefit all of us.

Geothermal energy can also be used to make hydrogen. In the future we will run our cars and trucks on hydrogen, using the internal combustion engine. Here’s a clip of a hydrogen car that was shown on Good Morning America.

The electric utilities are using internal combustion engines — just larger  than most. Could we run it all on hydrogen? If hydrogen can be used in regular car engines, could it be used in the diesel engines that the electric utilities use to generate electricity?

Can you imagine it? The biggest and the best telescope in the world located on the Big Island. And most of the state’s electricity needs powered by geothermal wells on the Big Island. Rents and royalties would go to Native Hawaiian people and the rest of us would have the benefit of being free of Middle East oil.

We would be the envy of the world.

Not, no can. CAN!

Big Island, Peak Oil, Sustainability

Hawaii In The Time Of Peak Oil

2 Comments

In June of last year, Gail Tverberg wrote this post at The Oil Drum Blog, and just a few days ago she reposted it:

Hawaii seems to come up often in the thinking of people aware of peak oil. On one hand, it seems like an ideal place to relocate after peak oil – no need to worry about heating a house; clothing is mostly for protection from the sun; and crops can be grown year around. On the other hand, it produces no fossil fuel itself, and it is at the end of the supply line for both food and fuel. Hawaii’s biggest industry, tourism, is already declining, and with rising fuel costs, can only decline further.

When the Kohala Center started planning its energy conference a while back, I recommended they invite Gail to be the featured speaker. I had met her at the Peak Oil conference in Houston and was very familiar with her writing on The Oil Drum. As an insurance actuary, she assesses risk for the insurance industry. I like what she writes because it is clear and easy to understand.

She gave two talks in Hilo. The first was at the energy conference itself and the second, a free presentation to the Kanaka Council that I arranged.

I took her sightseeing around the Big Island over that weekend, so I got to chat with her quite a bit about oil supply matters.

Here is a very interesting post she did at the Energy Bulletin in March 2009. She wrote:

Nearly all of the economic analyses we see today have as their basic premise a view that the current financial crisis is a temporary aberration. We will have a V or U shaped recovery, especially if enough stimulus is applied, and the economy will soon be back to Business as Usual.

I believe this assumption is basically incorrect. The current financial crisis is a direct result of peak oil. There may be oscillations in the economic situation, but generally, we can’t expect things to get much better. In fact, there is a very distinct possibility that things may get very much worse in the next few years.

Whether or not one believes Gail is right — that the current financial crisis is caused by Peak Oil — it is prudent that we plan for the worse and hope for the best. I think our most reasonable path is to actively pursue geothermal energy. We must help HELCO figure out how to decommission their oil-fired plants — put them in moth balls, in standby mode, and replace them with geothermal plants, preferably ones that are geographically diversified. At the same time, we need to figure out how to leave their stockholders whole. We can do this.

The reason we need geothermal is that geothermal energy costs are stable. With geothermal, our electricity and water bills would not go up as oil prices rise. And our transportation costs could stabilize, as well. We could have a successful economy here in Hawai‘i in spite of rising oil prices.

If we don’t go geothermal, rising foreign oil costs could bankrupt us. Our society could come apart.

Switching to geothermal is not an option; it is a necessity. We all know this.